Now that we have no PWM on MBA M2 what to do with FRC/Dithering?

The only way I know if is getting a capture card and trying to analyze a diff between the frames of an image that should be static.

Though knowing that providers like Amulet needed to turn it off, I'm wondering if there's lossless screen capture software that would do the same. Curious to see if the community knows anything else here.

I just bought a M2 MBA and can confirm the eye strain is still pretty significant. Any luck in disabling the dithering? I'll likely have to return it and once again go back to by trusted 2015 MBP, last laptop with no eye strain. There has to be a solution!

MAS-76 ARM Macs are an entirely different can of worms from older systems. so don't think I can help.

MAS-76 Worth installing Asahi Linux and see how it is as the driver for it currently has zero hardware acceleration.

JTL, I have a 2019 Intel MBP with AMD Radeon Pro 5500M / Intel UHD Graphics 630. Is there any way to disable dithering on that? I'd love to use that machine. It would be a life-saver.

I had the same issue with the M1 MacBook Air. Changing to sRGB did not work. Nor did SwitchResX on the older 2019 Intel machine (setting to millions of colors). Nothing has worked so far for any machine post 2015

Just picked one of these up today, I'll definitely post again with impressions on eye strain.

Really interesting that there's no sign of dithering or PWM, I wonder if Apple is noticing more users complaining about these problems.

ryans hey Ryans, I’ve read your comments on some posts and I’m having the same issue with my Macbook Air M1. I’m just wondering if there’s a fix for it.

MAS-76 which 2015 model do you have? Intel graphics?

How can it not have dithering? Is it a 10 bit panel? I kind of doubt it? But maybe?

ryans You won't believe what's happening with me, I use windows laptop for work that is connected to two external monitors and I use an iPad Pro 11" all day too with no issues. When I connect my MBA m1 to my monitors after 30mins my eyes get really red and itchy, I can't focus on the screen when looking at text.

@Moe3224 I have the same. I dont use Mac, but I have 2 windows computers that are OK, but have tried several which, when I connect to the same monitor, are not fine and my eyes go bloodshot in few hours. It is not the same as with PWM, a bit slower irritation, but if I use several days, my eyes are totally bloodshot and colleagues ask if I have been crying or have a hangover.

Yes, recently this has been the case. Previously I was only sensitive to PWM and most modern laptop screens, but now they have made some changes to the software, so that the irritation comes through even with a display that is fine with other computers

I've been using the M2 Air for about a week now, it's definitely easier on the eyes in my experience. I still get a little dizzy after prolonged use, but it doesn't cause the gritty eyes, migraine, lingering pain above the eyes, etc. I'm actually planning on selling my M1 and just keeping the M2.

My setup is:

• sRGB Color Profile
• True Tone On
• Auto-Brightness Off
• Usually kept at 50% brightness

I'd definitely recommend trying this one out if the M1 gave you trouble

bkdo Im curious which M1 you had, was it the air or the pro? How long did you use it when you felt the dizziness?

bkdo How bad was the M1 compared to the M2? I have an issue with the m1 when I connect it to an external display, Im having the same symptoms even looking at that display too.

NewDwarf I am looking forward to trying your method for turning off dithering on my MacBook Pro 2015

lougro Other companies such as Amulet Hotkey also acknowledge that dithering is used on MacOS. They have tools available to remove it but you need to be using their hardware (which is typically in the several thousands of dollars).

Temporal dithering is a technique graphics cards use to generate intermediate colors, by rapidly alternating a
pixel between two adjacent color values. The effect is not perceptible to the human eye. For any compression
algorithm, such as that used by PCoIP, this results in a significant overhead when dealing with the increased
pixel color activity.
Enabling temporal dithering on a machine using PCoIP can result in high bandwidth usage and poor
performance, even when the display is seemingly static. To resolve this, you must disable temporal dithering
on the computer where the PCoIP host card is used.
Temporal dithering is enabled by default on Apple Macs, with no user-visible option to disable it.
To disable temporal dithering, you must install an appropriate macOS Kernel Extension (‘kext’). The kext
disables temporal dithering on the local graphics card by changing internal driver settings

diop Good point. I have read through that resource. I'll include this info as a reference.

I feel there is nothing to conclude that. The Temporal Dithering might not be detectable with 240Hz and there are reports at Macrumours the M2 still causing eye strain.

Even if there is one user who reports eye strain, I would have my doubts. A book does not cause eye strain, a laptop also should not. Like they did not 10 years ago.

I also have eye problems from macbook air m2, air m1 was much easier on my eyes.

eyestrainsolutions What kind of problems you generally have? Would be crucial to know if you get bloodshot eyes, or migraines or what and how has it been with other devices, do you have any devices at the moment you can use?

Maxx I see one of two possibilities here.

1) The attempt at testing for temporal dithering was inaccurate

2) There can certainly be other causes of eyestrain than just temporal dithering

However with the first point. I am aware of at least one camera that can a) be connected to a microscope for magnification and b) can record around 20k FPS, but the cost is nontrivial.

I tested on three Macs: 1) 2019 MBP dual graphics, 2) M1 Max Pro, 3) M2 MacAir.

Truthfully the M2 MacAir was actually the worst on my eyes. Immediate strain. But all were bad. If the above is correct and M2 doesn't have dithering than JTL you may be right that something else is going on?

That's discouraging. I've tried to hire a programmer to disable dithering on the 2019 MBP; couldn't solve for Intel. I contact Amulet. They wrote back and said there's no disabling Apple Silicon yet and their Intel dithering disable kext will only ever work with their hardware.

For now I've had to give up and revert back to my 2015 MBP which of course isn't a great solution.

Moe3224 You won't believe what's happening with me, I use windows laptop for work that is connected to two external monitors and I use an iPad Pro 11" all day too with no issues. When I connect my MBA m1 to my monitors after 30mins my eyes get really red and itchy, I can't focus on the screen when looking at text.

I wouldn't discount font rendering by macOS, which is different than Windows and Linux. This was my issue and had the same symptoms you're having. Even though most may not notice it, the fonts are really blurry, and rendered in a way that makes the eyes struggle to focus on text.

The anti-glare coating of the screen blurs the fonts even further, but the font rendering could explain why people are still having problems when using external monitors as well.

MAS-76 For now I've had to give up and revert back to my 2015 MBP which of course isn't a great solution.

Along with the font rendering, the difference in your 2015 MBP and the newer models is the resolution and amount of nits (brightness) of the screen.

I too had issues with the 2019 MBP and M1 MBP, then I switched to a Thinkpad that has around the same resolution and nits as your 2015 MBP, (as well as running operating systems that do not share Apple's techniques for font rendering) and I'm ok now.

I believe the higher the resolutions, the worse the problem becomes with Apple's font rendering, as if you leave it at native, the text is hard to read, but if you scale it, then you increase the blur. The font rendering also got worse with newer macOS updates.

As for the difference in nits, I notice the problem for me gets worse in light mode, hence I had to keep it at dark mode at all times. Keeping the brightness to full on a 300-nit screen is much better for my eyes than any level of brightness set on a 500+ nit screen.

Of course, I'm just speculating with all the above based on my experience, so don't take my word for it.

pushupsandcode then I switched to a Thinkpad that has around the same resolution and nits as your 2015 MBP

Which Thinkpad running which OS exactly?